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This article focusses on the intelligence situation of and in Austria since the end of World War II when the people of Austria, perhaps surprisingly for most of them, were given a second chance at nation-building, albeit under totally different conditions from those in 1918/19. By early May 1945 it was occupied by the four major victorious Allies of World War II who, at least initially, were determined to direct and control every facet of public life in Austria until, by their estimation, stable and secure democratic conditions were established. This control, total at first but progressively loosened over the ten long years of military, diplomatic and civilian dependence under occupation, was soon coloured by the emerging differences and controversies among the Allies themselves as their attention, already by mid-1946, started to switch from epuration of Austria and of Austrians from Nazism and fascism to mutual observation between the Western Powers on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other; this was done in pursuit of larger ideological aims and military interests in Central Europe. Thus Austria rather quickly became an intelligence battleground of the Great Powers against each other and particularly of the two Super-Powers, „defending“ their territory of influence at the geopolitically crucial but increasingly more ideologically determined dividing line running through the country from Upper Austria in the north to Burgenland in the south-east.
These then were the circumstances under which Austrian intelligence units were re-constituted or, at least partially, created anew after World War II. In terms of intelligence cooperation, the first decade of the Second Republic of Austria was characterized by innumerable interferences in the area of state police security on the one hand, and by secretive attempts, mainly by the Americans, to prepare western occupied Austria for a future Austrian army and military intelligence organization, on the other.(3) While the Staatspolizeilicher Dienst (popularly called Stapo) as the internal civilian security service was re-established in humble beginnings already by the Provisional Renner Government in 1945, the military intelligence apparatus of the Second Republic was officially founded only several months after the signing of the Austrian State Treaty on May 15, 1955. This meant that the Stapo could reconnect to the tradition of both the Politische Zentralevidenzstelle der Bundespolizeidirektion Wien (since 1929) and of the Staatspolizeiliche Evidenzbüro (since 1933) of the First Republic up to the Anschluss,(4) whereas the revival of military intelligence had to be tackled under the very restrictive conditions of the military clauses of the Austrian State Treaty and of the self-imposed neutrality status of Austria enacted in October 1955. However, as already mentioned, planning and preparatory steps for a future Austrian army cum military intelligence were already undertaken by the early 1950s, particularly under the tutelage of USFA (U.S. Forces in Austria), the American military establishment in Austria, less so by BTA (British Troops Austria), the British military force in Austria or by the French. Thus, in the context of the question of intelligence cooperation over the last 50 years, Austrian military intelligence can be seen as having been re-born, by and large, of transatlantic sponsorship or at least under conditions of transatlantic midwifery and consequent tutelage. There can be no question about it: when the Gruppe Nachrichtendienst (Nagrp) of the new Austrian army was finally and officially created in 1956, it bore the mark of the predominantly American effort of rebuilding a democratic Austrian army capable not only of a military defence posture but also of contributing to western, anti-communist interests in the region, irrespective of the self-imposed boundaries and limitations of permanent neutrality entered into by the Austrian parliament through the constitutional neutrality law passed on October 26, 1955. |
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 SURVEY
 CONTENT
 INTRODUCTION
 A LITTLE HISTORY ...
 THE CURRENT AUSTRIAN
INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS |
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